


Five Years

by yeetwoodsnacc



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Caretaker Dedue Molinaro, Dedue Molinaro-centric, Dimidue Week (Fire Emblem), Dimidue Week 2020 (Fire Emblem), Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd Needs a Hug, M/M, Marriage, Military Families, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Same-Sex Marriage, caretaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24328303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeetwoodsnacc/pseuds/yeetwoodsnacc
Summary: Dimitri returns home from war to husband Dedue, who tends to his wounds and takes care of him during his difficult road to recovery.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Dedue Molinaro, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Dimidue Week 2020





	Five Years

**Author's Note:**

> Potential CW: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder  
> Modern military AU. Dimitri Blaiddyd is a high-ranking solider returning home from war to his husband, civilian Dedue Molinaro.

It's profoundly difficult finding the best introductions after your husband returns from war. So much emotion cannot be translated. Instead, we simply embraced, cried. We were once again together. The half-decade of poor connectivity and short video messages had come and gone. The nightmares, for a while, left with them.

The man that emerged from the plane that evening was dissheveled, ragged. The toils of combat left figurative and literal scars. "Minor injuries," the representative told me in a phone call. "Couple more days and he'll be back and running." I'd counted, it was the twelfth such call. By the fifteenth, I knew the idealism Dimitri once had was beginning to fray. His risks and sacrifices, however minor, unraveled in consequence. The optimism left long before he returned.

Our first words weren't until we were five miles outside the base. His sunset-coated, shoulder length blonde hair flew in the wind of the retracted window beside the passenger seat. The radio must have been playing something from the 70's, America or The Eagles. As his hair twirled and bounded in the light, a voice I longed to hear emerged from strained vocal cords.

"Why did you come back for me, Dedue? I am no longer the man you love."

"Nonsense," I replied, "you are and forever will be my light."

"That light extinguished itself on the battlefield," replied Dimitri, rage between his teeth. "You should have left me back there so that I can return...so that I may put the howling voices of my brothers at ease."

"We may honor them together," I replied. Tears were starting to blur the lines on the road. Any more and I'd have to pull over. "Now and for the rest of our lives. It is time for you to recover, to rest, to live as a testament to their stories."

"Their stories," replied Dimitri, "are all that is left. They are all I can hear, all I will ever hear..."

His calls were already becoming infequent before his discharge. Our conversations grew scattered, minimal. Even then, it was difficult for him to string together more than a few words in a single sentence. I'd begged, lobbied, pushed through every layer of smiling representatives and hand-shaking bureaucrats to get him home early. They promised me everything, but all they gave me in return was a pat on the shoulder and the assurance that things would be all right and he'd be home safely in no time at all.

The house we built finally seems full again, though its silences remain. We spend hours on the couch, speechless, with our arms around one another. He refuses to let go, but doesn't explain why. Months go by like days. He spends his morning sitting in bed, listening only to the birdsong. I tried to interrupt, offering him breakfast, only to get turned away until at least 2:00. I know he's awake the entire time, lost in thought. Sometimes I catch him laughing but I don't bother asking what he finds so funny. Voicemail messages from the VA and employment offices go unanswered. I have to act as his representative. It's work I don't mind doing for him, but I'm not sure he appreciates the undertaking.

I've proven my dedication over five years. I must continue to prove it when he needs me most. I hold him so close that his scars become mine. His burden is now my struggle. I am in the passenger seat on his journey through recovery. However, I am also there to take the wheel when he is too tired to continue driving, his lights when the road is becoming too dark to see. My light must now be his.

"Tell me exactly how you feel," said the psychiatrist, "when you hear their voices."

His slender, once delicate hand tightened like a vice around mine. His head rose from the dark grey office carpet to face his interrogator. The following ten seconds of silence felt like a week.

"I feel as if I should be one of them."

No matter how many times he says it, it still feels like an arrow flying through my chest, exiting to pin me against the wall. I know he doesn't mean it to spite me personally. His hand otherwise wouldn't be in mine. We wouldn't share a bed, keep one another warm as cold wind blew through our window. In fact, any words seem like progress, the first quarter of a mile in a marathon.

"And how," he asks, "do you feel that will put their minds at ease? Do you feel as if your burden of responsibility for their souls will be passed..." I prepare for it. "...onto the ones that you love most?"

I intervene. "Doctor, I..."

He turns toward me, softer than in recent months, and genuinely interrupts. "...no, Dedue, I...allow me." I understand.

He takes a deep breath, sighs, shakes his mane and turns back toward the ground. "...it is, perhaps, somewhat irrational to admit, Doctor. But to see life, once so bright and luminous, get removed, disposed, almost so quickly...it's more to bear. I bear their lives on my conscience, as their officer, I...I failed them. And I must put their cries to rest. I..."

He breaks down and cries and doesn't say another word for the rest of the session. That evening, we decide to take a bath together, drawing the water extra warm. It helps him immensely. His scars are still going to take some getting used to, but every one is simply beautiful and unique. I take great care to scrub them individually. The attention surprises him.

"Why must you take pride in my failure?" he asks.

"Your scars aren't failure," I reply. "They're reminders of how far you've come."

The promises we made in our youth, when sun beamed and saturated Earth's colors, were fading. We still don't talk as often as I'd like. Most of the time it's about triviality. What movie we should watch next. Where we should go out for dinner. How far outside the city limits we should drive one another.

We drove six hours one afternoon, only to stop at an ice cream parlor somewhere around the state line after nightfall. It was as if we'd driven back in time. The music, neon lights, expressions on faces...all were as if we'd left our plane of existence and retreated back into memories. Even his face seemed like it was covered by an overdramatic lens filter on a soap opera.

It had been nearly a year after he'd returned home. His left eye was beginning to brighten each time ours met. He'd smile more genuinely, react more positively, taste more generously. There wasn't anything all that special about this ice cream, but even I could feel some kind of baked-in nostalgia working its way into the present day.

"I know this might not mean so much," he said, the spoon of oreo-and-vanilla mixture touching his lower lip. He bit the bullet and downed the hatch, enjoying every square inch of the spoon's surface area before resuming. I leaned in. "but thank you. I know I've almost been a bump on a log for the last little while, but, uh..."

"...no," I replied, slowly grasping his sleeve and looking into his eye. "don't apologize. It's been a long road. It's going to be equally long getting back. But we are here now, together, are we not?"

"I suppose so," Dimitri answered, scooping another spoonful from his cup. "I feel guilty for not giving you any more credit, Dedue. It's been...what, six years since I've been the husband that picked up his end of the slack..."

"Again," I replied, "don't feel so guilty over what you couldn't do. I understand. I made a commitment, and..."

"...I know, I know," he interrupted, "that's what marriages are for. I get that. You sound more like my stepmother every day."

"I beg your pardon," I nearly chuckled. "for one, I didn't expect you to be so charming when we first met. In fact, it took many years for you to get that way."

"What can I say," replied Dimitri, "I'm a slow burning bundle of incense that just won't leave the room. Literally and figuratively." He took another bite of ice cream and reacted. "MMM!" he exclaimed, mouth still full. "What do they put in this stuff?"

I smiled. It was the most casual I'd seen him since his return.

"Your guess is as good as mine," I responded. "everything about this feels like a dream."

He swallowed the rest of his helping of ice cream and leaned in closely. "Well, if it is, let's make it last as long as we can."

He placed his hand on my shoulder and we kissed, over and over, so frequently that the words, and phrases, and minutes and hours blurred. By the time we discovered we'd finished, the entire parlor had closed and we were the only two remaining. It was Dimitri, the bench, two finished ice cream cups, the buzzing neon, the car, the night, and the journey ahead.

"Come," I said, "let's make our way back."

It would be tomorrow before we'd arrived at our doorstep. He'd fallen asleep for most of the ride, but I knew he was beginning, at least, to find peace in our circumstances. The journey ahead would prove to be a bumpy one...but the worst, it seemed, was finally over. Dimitri was home.


End file.
